Edinburgh hotel prices soar as Oasis clashes with Fringe

Some rooms are costing visitors and performers thousands as city swamped with comedy and music fans, writes Maira Butt

- By Maira Butt

Eye-watering accommodation prices during the Edinburgh Fringe have long been a challenge for performers and audiences alike - but this year, a new faction has entered the fight for affordable lodgings: Oasis fans.

The Britpop band's hotly anticipated reunion gigs at Murrayfield Stadium will draw more than 200,000 people to the Scottish capital this weekend - clashing directly with the opening days of the world's largest performing arts festival. The result? A citywide scramble for beds, with prices soaring to unprecedented levels.

Comedian Marc Burrows has dubbed it "the Oasis effect", saying it has made the already expensive Fringe "catastrophically" unaffordable. Hotel rooms have been listed for up to £4,000 a night, with hostels charging hundreds for bunk beds. Several guests told The Independent their bookings appeared to have cost three times the usual price.

"I started looking as soon as I got the tickets - and there were places in Edinburgh city centre costing £700 a night," Oasis fan Emily, who lives in Newcastle, tells The Independent. "We're all in our late twenties. That's far, far out of our budget."

She eventually found a room for four people at a two-star hotel in Uphall costing £300. It will take a walk, a tram and a train to get to Murrayfield Stadium, where Oasis are playing, but she considers herself one of the lucky ones.

"That was the only one I could find that wasn't going to cost half of our mortgage," she says. "I'm just glad that we managed to get one, because some people I know booked a hotel and it was cancelled, and they tried to get them to rebook it for triple what they originally paid."

She continues: "My partner's friend booked a hotel for £90, and the booking was cancelled and then the room resold for £400."